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Does Gender Effect Your Guild Leadership Success?

coh-WukkiYes, I completely and utterly went there, because I had to. 

Recently, after having come into a major position of power in my guild, I have found myself contemplating the many things I end up doing for the guild. 

First, I a/am/the:

  1. Lead Tank of the Guild. I say Lead Tank as I know Ven hates the term “MT”, and this seems to infer more that I am the Tanking Leader, like a Class Leader.
  2. Second in Command.
  3. Primary organizer of the guild.
  4. Recruitment Officer.
  5. Only female.
  6. Current acting Guild Leader of my guild.

Looking at all of that, and wondering what else I forgot to add to that list, I have began to wonder if people challenge me based on my skill, personality, or something more, such as gender. Analyzing this, I noticed that I act about the same as the other officers, and belong to the same skill level as them. That leaves me to think that the reason why I have such a hard time keeping people in line is because I am female. I could be wrong though. The only reason I am even following this train of thought is because none of the other officers have had these problems. Plus a lot of our number seem to be rather chavenistic (omg, a girl tank?!). Let me explain what happened with my latest challenger. Names of people and places have been substituted to protect the innocent. 


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Malygos 25 Finally Down

 

mamadragon

We Worked Hard, And Now That Hard Work Has Paid Off.

Enter V A N Q U I S H

 

vqlogo

A few days after all of us left Red Dragon Society, we formed <V A N Q U I S H>, named from the alliance guild on Cho’gal that our gm, Irocktankz, was a part of. We immediately started recruiting heavily, even going as far as stealing members from dying 10 man guilds. Why? We were desperate, and wanted to grab the best we could get, and settle for nothing less. Did it work? I would say it did.

We now have a full roster of some of the brightest players I have ever met, and some not so bright who are proving to be quick learners. We missed The Immortal by one death on Sapphiron, and missed last weeks 3m patchwerk kill by 13 seconds. We also killed Malygos, but the server rolled back, so we have to do it again Sunday. I do not mind though, it is progress.

I do not know how it will turn out here. It is not perfect, but I like the freedom that I have. I hope the guild succeeds and can make it far, but I am not holding my breath. Ever since Wrath came out, I have felt anxious and rushed, and I cannot figure out why. Maybe the coming months will tell me….


<V A N Q U I S H> is still recruiting. Please check the website for more details.

What happened in Red Dragon Society?

Logo for RDS

It has been a few weeks since I have left Red Dragon Society, and now that the dust has settled, I feel I can finally talk about what had transpired. Now that I have played things around in my head, I realized that I was half at fault, though for many different reasons.

It began with when Bukki and I joined Red Dragon Society. We had jumped the gun, and found ourselves in a guild with only four people in it total. A little dismayed, but still hopeful, we still waited and began doing heroics on Bonechewer to gear ourselves up. We had arrived on November 20th, and did not begin our first raid until December 12th. This was a little dismaying, but we were gathering people. First we cleared 10 man content, and slowly 25 man content. All seemed well, until a slow rift started to begin. A lot of us, the better players (I say better because we were top dps, heals, and tanks) soon became dismayed at the quality of players we were recruiting. The guild leader took it upon himself to start interviewing candidates without consulting any of the officers or the guild. The reasoning? Because he was afraid we would scare off candidates. Granted, Irocktankz and myself were screening applicants with immense scrutiny, and found most of them were lying in regards to their experiences.  Nevertheless, the guild leader did as he pleased, and the quality and success of our raids started going down as a result.

I was an officer, and MT of the guild. I argued frequently with the guild leader over how things should be ran, because raids were becoming harder and harder to clear. Not to mention, we were becoming malcontent with how lax the guild was ran. Sure, we cleared raids, but we were doing so at the cost of so many wasted hours. Most of us had lives, and were not willing to waste any more of it. The straw that broke the camels back was when the guild leader decided to invite yet another death knight to the guild, who was in all greens, who would be set as a starter. It was then that a few of us just threw in the towel and gquit. Do I feel that I could have done things differently? Yes. I left the guild. I was a MT, and that role is not so easy to earn again, in this day and age where you bring 2-3 tanks per 25 man raid. I despaired for a while, but I couldn’t handle dealing with grey quality service. 

So, with that, Bukki, Irocktankz, Breetai, Robobill, Toranagasama, Tulis, and soon to be others just waited for the night and hoped that tomorrow would bring something better.

 

Part 2 coming out soon.

Looking for More

<V A N Q U I S H >

VQ is currently looking for four to five more healers, and a lot of ranged dps.

We raid 10:30pm to 1:30am (PST!) Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (though this is subject to change).

We take no nonsense from anyone, which was just proven lately with the gkicking of 4 very bad apples from our guild.

 

Hopefully someone who reads this will be interested.

Glory of the Hero as of 3.0.8

Most of the harder achievements have been fixed. This was written as of 01/22/09 and may change in the days to come.

Azjol-Nerub

  • Hadronox Denied – No Changes. You can still bug her out and reset her.
  • Gotta Go! – Increased to 4 minutes Kill Time. Still need Decent DPS. Curse of Tongues + Hurricane Stacks.
  • Watch Him Die – No Changes. Still the hardest Achievement in my opinion.

Ahn’kahet,: The Old Kingdom

  • Respect your Elders – He will berserk if kited. The Guardians Need to be handled 100 yards away from the boss via CC or Holy Paladin healing himself with RF on.
  • The Party’s Over – No Changes.
  • Volazj’s Quick Demise – No Changes. Some creative ways to do this encounter are at WoWhead.
  • Volunteer Work – She resets if you try to jump off the waterfall / kite her. You just have to eat it, tanks.

Caverns of Time: The Culling of Stratholme

  • The Culling of Time – No Changes.
  • Zombiefest – No Changes. Doing the same tanking boss in town hall tactic then gathering the zombies later, still works.

Drak’Tharon Keep

Gundrak

Halls of Lightning

Halls of Stone

The Nexus

The Oculus

Utgarde Keep

Utgarde Pinnacle

Violet Hold

  • A Void Dance – No Changes. Still Bugged.
  • Defenseless – Obviously, No Changes.
  • Dehydration – No known changes, but have received reports that the Crystal Defense System might not kill the little Globs. Need Confirmation.
  • Lockdown! – Obviously, No Changes.

Oops, I Died Again – Week 1

diemalletdie

Once Upon a time, there was a Dwarf Priest by the name of Mallet. He was a very egotistical priest, always believing that just because he had Spirit of Redemption, he would never die. One day, however, he was proven wrong. He came upon the most succulent looking piece of cheesecake on a log, in Borean Tundra. With his massive ego and equally huge appetite, he did not even take a moment to think about how suspicious the sight was. Taking a step forward, he started grabbing for the cake, when out from nowhere came a Forsaken Warrior, with a very amused expression upon her face.

“I never did think that someone would be stupid enough to fall for this trap, ” said the warrior in common, her eyes sparkling at her good boon.

Mallet tensed up, and did the stupidest thing one could have done in that situation. Instead of turning and running for his life, he started charging for the cheesecake. Using a swiftness potion, he jumped for the cake, but was knocked back by the warrior’s shield. Landing on the ground with a thud, he slowly managed to get himself up, slowly realizing the situation that he is in. Deciding that a piece of cheesecake may not be worth the trouble, he starts backing up slowly, thinking about how to run before his thoughts are interrupted by a haunted laughter.

“You amuse me, Dwarf! You face death over a piece of cake!,” the warrior could not stop laughing, “I will tell you this. If you can outrun yours truly to the Utgarde Pinnacle, you can have as many of these cakes as you want. If I catch up to you, though, you better hope that you have written your will.”

The warrior looked at Mallet expectantly, waiting to see his decision. Mallet, on the other hand, was beaming. He could have as many cakes as he wanted, and all he had to do was outrun a dead woman! Nodding his head at the warrior, he turned around and ran, popping another swiftness potion. As he started sprinting, he turned around to see the warrior quickly running after him faster than he was running! Panicking, he hoped that she had also just popped a potion; He really wanted that cake.

Hours passed by and the warrior showed no signs of tiring. Together, they ran through the frozen wastes of Dragonblight and the dense forests of Grizzly Hills before arriving in Howling Fjord. Mallet was exhausted, but he kept pushing for the keep. Soon, he would have that cake, and maybe even some ice cream. Minutes passed by as the Keep came into view, and outside the Pinnacle was a pile of cake as tall as the sky. To Mallet, it was the symbol of heaven, of complete bliss. He started to take another swiftness potion before he felt an exploding pain on his back left leg. Falling over, he looked at his leg and saw that his hamstring had been cut by the warrior’s large axe. Holding up his arms in a defensive position, he tried to stutter a plea of mercy, but was quickly cut down by the warrior. The last thing he saw was her malevolent grin and the glinting of her axe, before all went black.

The next time Mallet opened his eyes, he saw before him a world of shadow, where before him floated a beautiful apparition of white. Realizing what just happened, he jumped up and screamed as loud as he could into the world of the dead.

“*BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!*”

> To see image in full size, click the image above

How to Install WoTLK Model Viewer

UPDATE: Since this post, http://www.wowmodelviewer.org/ has come back up and is now hosting the download for the WoTLK Viewer.

 

Greetings! Since the wowmodelviewer site is constantly going down, and I have had several requests asking how to install it, I decided to make a blog post about it.

First, you download – Microsoft Visual C++ – from Microsoft.com. This will install Visual C++ and provide the current (beta-esque) modelviewer the libraries and utilities needed to actually run.

Next, you download and extract WoW Model Viewer itself. Since the website is currently offline, I have uploaded it to my blog and now give it to all of you who read this.  You can download it from this – link -. I assure you, it has no viruses. It was last updated 01/06/2009.

I must warn you though, this is not a stable release. It will crash, and may crash often, so save your work. The enchant particles are currently overdone, but that is all that is really bugged out. There are many new features, so enjoy them.

Good luck photoshopping!

Comparison of Warrior Armor via WoWhead

This is not really an actual post, more like research notes. The comparison only focuses on looking for overall balance.

My Newb Year Resolution

Greetings from 2008! Soon, I’ll have entered the new year myself, and be able to party with the rest of you until I cannot lift up my sword any more. ;) This is, however, the first year that I have thought up of any WoW-related resolutions. I wonder if that means I am playing too much? Either way, here is the list!

Short Term

  1. Clear 25 mans plus 3 drakes down Sarth 10/25 before Ulduar.
  2. Help reorganize my guild and get the dps off their asses to help them become better players.
  3. Level up another character.
  4. Get my Red Proto Drake. 

Long Term

  1. Do more Blog Posts.
  2. Level Aylii.
  3. Do more errands for Matticus.
  4. Try posting more on Plusheal and Tankspot.
  5. Make my own UI Mods.